What game are you wasting time on?

[flyingjohn]

Nightfire for the Cube, Agent under fire sequel.
Oh look, they actually improved the level design. You have multiple paths and you can use gadgets for side stuff. I am intrigued, i wonder what the next level will bring? Every single level past the first is the same generic agent under fire style. Son of a bitch.
After playing the majority of Bond ps2 games i can safely say they are all style over substance with mediocre gameplay and boring level design.

But you know what isn't style over substance? The hack series of jrpg's. Cause they don't have style or substance.

 

[NecroLord]

I started System Shock 2.
Decided to do a PSI run, since I have already played as a Marine in the past (also as an OSA agent).
PSI has so many cool abilities, think of them as mage spells.
Doing very good so far, now I'm on level 5 - Recreation.
PSI Melee build is OP...
I will only use the Pistol as the firearm of choice and not go further in Standard Weapons, since the Assault Rifle requires a bit more investment.
I would rather spend those cyber modules elsewhere.

 

[Ezekiel]

I wonder how many Zelda players didn't know how to get to the third maiden temple. I hate this part. Have had the game on hold here for months and months and months, because can't access northwest in dark world and get bored looking.

 

[NecroLord]

Alright, System Shock 2 is done.
Had a great time, though I always preferred the original System Shock.
I decided to unlock the Tier 5 PSI abilities and used Soma Transference on The Many's brain to just destroy it quickly.
Normally that fight is a bit more involved, though not excessively so, but I went straight for the jugular, so to speak.
Also the fight with Shodan is a cakewalk.
Great game.

Now I'm playing Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and holy shit, this game is brutal...

Now starting its expansion, Team Sabre.
RPGs. RPGs everywhere...

 

[NecroLord]

Man, if you thought Black Hawk Down was brutal with its convoy escort missions and RPGs flying everywhere, wait till you get to the expansion - Team Sabre.
Absolute Hell.
You get to complete missions in Columbia and Iran.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I was in the mood for some adventure games and decided to randomly pick one from my archive which led me playing through the Telwynium saga, the three episodes released so far. The setting, graphics, and story are nice but their lack of variance in puzzles or even a scoring system limits any reason to replay these games. Still I now patiently await part four.

 

[Vic]

who would've thought that some of the better turn based strategy gameplay comes from a hentai porn game

 

[Vic]

I wonder how many Zelda players didn't know how to get to the third maiden temple. I hate this part. Have had the game on hold here for months and months and months, because can't access northwest in dark world and get bored looking.

I beat link to the past last month and it was smooth sailing, just have to remember where you see stuff that is unlocked by a later power up.

so far the best zelda that I played, better than ocarina of time imo

edit: to access that area use the hookshot left and down from the witch house to cross the river.

 

[NecroLord]

I started a Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines run with a Toreador (my favorite VTM clan, next to Gangrel and Malkavian).
A reminder that the pen and paper game was not always SJW W0ke garbage, but was originally a game about Gothic Horror and Personal Horror, as your newly Embraced character struggles to adapt and fit into the World of Darkness and abandon his former life and family for the sake of the Masquerade, all while fighting to maintain control over the Beast within him and preserve a semblance of Humanity.

Anyway, the build is going to be a Celerity gunslinger with some Stealth thrown in. I will also focus on social skills mastery, namely Charisma and Persuasion.
Auspex will also help both your Ranged weapons skill and with sneaking, as you can detect enemies through walls.
You need at least a Ranged Weapon skill of 6 and above for the shooting to be worthwhile, of course, also a good gun. Good guns come a bit later once you get to Hollywood.
Many memorable and great characters, voiced splendidly and with good facial animations to convey emotions.

This is going to be fun...

 

[Darth Roxor]

Finished Powerslave.

The second half actually managed to keep me entertained. It still suffers from a lack of enemy variety and the guns are pretty bleh, and the only new enemy introduced in that second half is FUCKING ANNOYING, but the level design picks up a lot there, as does the challenge - with an average of 150 enemies in each level and fewer ammo pickups, sometimes you actually get to run out of lead for the m60.

Fun final level too that is on a timer and thus pretty intense, but it's completely gay that at around the midpoint it puts you past a point of no return, and the objective in that level is to find and smack 15 alium control towers, so if you missed any in the first half (which I did), you're boned.

 

[Caim]

Milo and the Magpies (2021)

A very short point and click adventure game where you guide Milo the cat, who after being chased off by a pair of belligerent magpies tries to find his way home by sneaking through the gardens of a Dutch suburb. It is a bit of a pixel hunt where the only way forward is clicking just the right thing to move on. Most of the puzzles are of that nature, but there's a few "figure out the code" puzzles and a couple of timing puzzles.

The game is scored to soft piano music, with the sound effects ranging from passable to jank. The little voice acting present is ass, but it's fortunately not necessary for progress. The visual presentation is a mixed bag. The character art is some absolute Newgrounds tier stuff for the humans, with Milo and the asshole magpies being a bit better. This is sharply contrasted by the absolutely amazing artwork for the world itself:

I am Dutch myself, so seeing this gives me a feeling of soft, comfy melancholy and a desire for a slower life. I like it a lot.

Note that the game itself is quite short. I am by no means a puzzle buff, but I managed to make my way through in sub-1 hour. I did not find all the secrets and did not try to, but if you'd went for them you'll easily pass an hour on this. Don't expect more than two hours though.

If you are a hardcore puzzle game enjoyer I sincerely doubt that you'll be challenged by this game, but if you enjoy a short and cozy walk through an absolutely beautiful world, you just might like this. Game's also dirt cheap right now, so give it a shot if you want to have a taste.

 

[TC Jr]

Recently been playing a lot of PS2 games via emulation, mostly games I knew I loved already and for the most part hold up. I assume most will be familiar with these games but fuck it.

The Warriors

One of Rockstar's best games IMO, the combat is so satisfying and just feels brutal at times. Not open-world but instead opts for hub-based levels in which you'll have a myriad of objectives to complete, there's a lot of side content and bonus objectives to complete too which will improve your warriors' stats/unlock abilities. Very linear and mostly great throughout.
My one "issue" is for the latter half of the game you mostly play as Swan who's fine but, the first half lets you see other warriors different move-sets and are more fun to play as, like Ajax and Cleon. Each warrior has different attributes, some better at fighting but worse at tagging, better at tagging but worse at fighting etc. Or just plain shite in all regards.

Spoiler

Looking at you, Fox. Fucking faggot.

An excellent game, especially with two players. (The PSP's version's great too)

Def Jam - FFNY

A very fun 3D fighter-wrestler hybrid featuring America's brightest tehe. A sequel to Def Jam which was more wrestling than fighting. Similar to The Warriors, the combat is satisfying and hits hard, especially the finishing moves. Not much to add, if you liked the AKI wrestling games you'll like this.

Ratchet & Clank

3D platformer full of charm, the definition of comfy - I love this game. Go from planet to planet in a mostly linear fashion progressing the story and collecting bolts to buy new weapons/gadgets, some of which are mandatory for progression.
The best part of the game is without a doubt the characters and general atmosphere, music kicks arse too. Tempted to call it my favourite platformer for the system but I've yet to re-play the 2nd game which I recall has an upgrade system for the weapons and generally has better gameplay, we shall see...

Burnout 3 - Takedown

Arcade Racer with a great soundtrack. Three major issues though, especially replaying it years later.
1. It's too fucking easy, some gold challenges can be a pain in the arse but for the most part you'll breeze through most race and especially road rage events.
2. Catch-up mechanic - I fucking loathe this in racing games, the first lap or two is rendered pointless really.
3. The boost mechanic - this is a personal preference but if you don't know anything about Burnout, in the first two games you earn boost by driving recklessly (oncoming, drifting, near misses etc.), once your meter is full you boost, however the whole challenge/fun is maintaining that boost which means basically having to refill it as you're using it to create Burnout x1, Burnout x2 etc. This boost mechanic is so satisfying, and dare I say the purpose of the game.

Whereas in 3, you earn boost the same way (also crashing and taking down opponents), but you're free to use it whenever you want, taking down opponents grants you a larger bar but there is zero challenge/nuance to it.
This ties into point #1 and #2. It makes the difficulty just you having to avoid traffic (again, doesn't matter until the final lap due to catch-up) as you hold the boost button for the whole race, you'll be 1st place just breezing through the track.
Despite the negativity, I'd still "rate" it above the 2nd game, it's a lot more fun to just sit down and play, more content/events too. Also 2's races are one lap too many imo, making it a drag at times.
Random but I'd liken it to Crash 1 (B2) vs Crash 2 (B3), the former is harder and more satsifying but the latter is just fun as fuck to play, with more mechanics thrown in.

Splashdown

A sea-doo racing game with an early 00's vibes complete with pop-punk soundtrack (Blink, Smash Mouth etc.), my ultimate guilty pleasure. Just a very fun game but a little too easy and very short (If anyone here plans on playing it, I had to use software mode otherwise I just got a black screen).

I also dropped Wasteland 2 DC, the general thread for it sums the game up well but I just got bored of the gameplay loop and a few other nitpicks, such as finding traversing the map being tedious as fuck (not the world map), and generally just not feeling the need to go on. I only reached the part were you have to pay tribute or something to some faggots. I'll come back to it one day probably.

Is there an easy way to install Viva New Vegas? I'm preparing for a new vegas run after Fallout 1 and apparently Viva New Vegas is supposed to be great, but it's a bastard to get installed.

I tried to use wabbajack install a few weeks ago and it failed (a couple of mods of the whole list), the game crashed during the loading. So yeah, will install manually the next time. The last time I used wabbajack and it worked fine but that was a year or more ago. Viva New Vegas is definitely worth the hasstle by the way, I think so too.

turns out, that if you don't pay for a premium nexus account, you have to manually download around 160 mods if you wanna play new vegas using viva new vegas

Not to be a "works on my machine" prick but just done this a couple of days ago and it works flawlessly without me having to amend/fix anything. Used the automated method with the Steam release, I only added one other mod, this radio station, again installed and worked no problem without having to do anything on my part. RE: having to install each mod indivudally, through the automated method, you're just clicking "slow download" 20-30 times in a row (2 mins tops) as Wabbajack seemed to just pop one up after another.

survival horror

cozy

It don't add up, Cap'n.

Sure it does. Horror games are like comfort food for me.

Survival Horrors especially, the RE1 mansion is perfect for this.

Yeah, I don't think I'll finish TLOU. This game is bad on so many levels. Usually I at least understand why people like the things I don't, but not in this case. So far, the most overrated game I've ever seen.

Aye it was shite, drop it if you haven't already. Had a co-worker recommend it and I bought it like a wanker, knowing full well I didn't like the idea of nu-Naughty Dog games.

"We" since my girlfriend is actually playing most of the game, allowing me to follow the story and see the pretty views while doing more interesting tasks.

Twitch streamers don't count man.

 

[NecroLord]

The VTMB run is going smoothly.
Getting ready to go to Grout's mansion and see what that Malkavian is all about...
I should mention that I am doing a completionist run, which means I will have ample Experience points to distribute among Skills, Attributes and Disciplines.


I'm also playing the original Shadow Warrior because I was in the mood for some Build Engine goodness.

 

[Hoodoo]

TC Jr The Warriors, Burnout 3, Def Jam and NFL Street 2 hold alot of good memories for me. Simple evenings talking unlimited shit after school with friends. Seems like another universe now.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Stayed up all night playing Aria of Sorrow. It's good shit, up there with Bloodstained and SotN.

 

[Ezekiel]

I shouldn't have bought Nioh 2, even for twelve dollars. Can't refund because it's from CDKeys, redeemed on Steam. Just more tired Souls shit with bloated enemy HP. Can't even jump, wtf. Like every analog game now needs a run button. Could have been jump!

 

[Ezekiel]

I remembered Vic's post about the hookshot, but did not read it again because I did not want to remember where he told me to use it. Well, searched and searched the dark world, could not find where to hook myself to northwest, got bored again, closed the emulator. Yeah, just hate this part.

 

[Ezekiel]

Never finished this game either. Wow, back when I still used white windows.

Can't pause game, but probably no good reason for it like in Souls. Well, excitement of invasions is long gone anyway, and Souls AI was always too stupid for cooperation.

 

[soutaiseiriron]

Recently been playing a lot of PS2 games via emulation, mostly games I knew I loved already and for the most part hold up. I assume most will be familiar with these games but fuck it.

Burnout 3 is alright but honestly overrated. I thought that once the cars got to Super level the game should have been over two hours ago, but you still have like half the game left to play with no new tracks or cars, so it got really boring and I just quit. I bounced off of all the others I've played in the series too. Just not my series.
Consider playing Midnight Club 2 or 3 if you want a racing game with some difficulty. Midnight Club 2 is probably the most difficult non-sim racer I know of. Just remember to use 60 fps patches, they both have them built into PCSX2, although MC2 has a PC port too.

 

[Silverfish]

bloated enemy HP.

Have you been introduced to our lord and savior, elemental feathers?

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I beat Aria of Sorrow.

 

[Vic]

I beat Aria of Sorrow.

how the fuck did you beat it so fast?

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I beat Aria of Sorrow.

how the fuck did you beat it so fast?

It's not a huge game. Took about 8-9 hours. I also didn't 100% it.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Far Cry 2. It has some shining qualities and I've been finding it very fun, despite the limitations.

The African landscape is fantastic, you are absorbed into it. Seeing a sunset on the river, or watching the wind blow a fire across the savannah is really impressive. These are not decorative elements; the style of gameplay ensures that you're always observing things. You're usually navigating some challenge, either looking at the map, scouting for enemies, making sense of your surroundings. Is this the immersion I keep hearing about? It really works here.

The Ubisoft open-world style of gameplay is not bad necessarily, it's just a limited version of what it could be. Here it works pretty well, for a while. It's fun to take out enemy camps using your own strategies, to infiltrate a nest of enemies in the slums during heavy rain to plant a bomb, or simply to slowly make your way from point A to point B across jungles, rivers and savannahs. There isn't a great variety of objectives, with missions belonging to 3-4 types, so it eventually it starts to feel samey.

Because I don't play a lot of FPS, I started on Moderate difficulty; quickly switched to Hardcore, which didn't live up to the name, after which I decided to restart on Infamous difficulty using a mod* that fixed some annoyances with the game. Infamous is the only way to play. This is a game where you should spend a lot of time planning to avoid mistakes, it has to punish you. I haven't got to the end yet, but so far I'd prefer it to be even a bit harder.

Many have complained about the respawning enemy outposts--as soon as you leave a map cell the enemies are reset, leading to a lot of frustation, as you do a lot of travelling back and forth. Now, with the mod, they'll stay clear for at least 45 real minutes. It fixes bullet sponge enemies, makes the machete silent and restores some of the color to the beautiful African landscape; itt also features limited saving(like the consoles) and the option to remove the player marker from the map to make navigation truly a challenge, although this can make some of the delicate infiltration missions(i.e. blowing up enemy supplies in the middle of the slums) a bit frustrating, if you're playing them for the first time--still very worth it, imo.

The easiest strat is to use the Sniper Rifle to pick enemies far away, because enemies aren't very smart and don't communicate effectively. I find this kind of boring and prefer to get inside their range, using cover. This feels like a game made for stealth(some similarities with MGSV), and it still works, despite not being fully fleshed out. You don't get a lot of feedback on your visibility, you can't hide bodies, sound isn't very informative. It's still my favorite way to play: going out at night with a silent Makarov and clearing an entire outpost that way is a pretty good feeling, although more often than not something goes wrong and I have to pull my G3.

* I was confused by the number of overhaul mods that seem to do more or less the same thing. I ended up installing Tom's Realism Plus through the installer, which let me customize some stuff, like the saturation level(60% feels good to me; most modded games you see on Youtube go all the other way from the original and have very bright colors).

 

[TC Jr]

Recently been playing a lot of PS2 games via emulation, mostly games I knew I loved already and for the most part hold up. I assume most will be familiar with these games but fuck it.

Burnout 3 is alright but honestly overrated. I thought that once the cars got to Super level the game should have been over two hours ago, but you still have like half the game left to play with no new tracks or cars, so it got really boring and I just quit. I bounced off of all the others I've played in the series too. Just not my series.
Consider playing Midnight Club 2 or 3 if you want a racing game with some difficulty. Midnight Club 2 is probably the most difficult non-sim racer I know of. Just remember to use 60 fps patches, they both have them built into PCSX2, although MC2 has a PC port too.

Yeah, it definitely wears out it's welcome.
Regarding Midnight Cliub, I'll try those, I remember playing the original and being unimpressed though. Loved the NFS games for that arcade-sim type of game.